Cameroon: Boko Haram attack leaves 4 dead and many injured

Boko Haram terrorists stormed several localities in Cameroon on Saturday night and killed at least five people, a day after a suicide bombing killed one and injured five others in Kolofata, the country’s battered far north region.

Boukar Blama was killed in Sandawadjiri locality while four unidentified persons were murdered in Ganei, as reported by Cameroonian newspaper, L’Oeil du Sahel.

It seems to have become a daily affair in Cameroon’s far north region with regular bomb and gun attacks, which leave many dead and send thousands away from their ancestral land.

President Paul Biya of Cameroon who was quick to block Internet in the Souththeast and Southhwest regions of Cameroon after protests for equality and justice erupted there late last year, has not made any single trip to Cameroon’s far north since Boko Haram killers began massacring his people three years ago in 2014.

Rather, Mr. Biya spends months abroad every year, and once failed to attend the burial ceremony of over 30 Cameroonian soldiers who were killed by Boko Haram, and their bodies brought to Yaounde, the country’s capital where his presidential palace is. 

Mr. Biya is in Geneva now and activists have promised to embarrass him should he fail to return home within seven days. But the octogenarian who has been in power for 35 years does not always succumb to threats by his countrymen.

In all, Boko Haram has killed more than 2000 civilians in Cameroon since 2014 in over 500 attacks, including 50 suicide bombings. About 150 soldiers and policemen have also died during that unconventional war.

Thousands have been kidnapped and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. But Mr. Biya has not found time in three years to show solidarity to troops or populations running helter-skelter and wondering where the leadership is.